Politics - News Analysis
Stephanie Grisham Gets Eviscerated After Telling Disgusting Lie That Obama Officials Left ‘Mean Notes’ Around the White House
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham faced stiff backlash for claiming that President Barack Obama‘s press staff left nasty notes for the incoming administration of President Donald Trump, which former Obama officials slammed as a “bald-faced” and “outrageous” lie.
Grisham has yet to hold a press briefing since taking over for Sarah Huckabee Sanders, but on Tuesday, she managed to make a sort of news anyway. According to CNN’s Abby Phillip, Grisham claimed that Trump’s press staff found nasty notes at their desks that were left by the Obama press shop.
“WH Press Sec Stephanie Grisham claims Obama aides left ‘you will fail” notes in offices for Trump aides: ‘We came into the WH, I’ll tell you something. Every office was filled with Obama books and we had notes left behind that said ‘you will fail,’ ‘you aren’t going to make it,’” Phillip wrote on Twitter.
WH Press Sec Stephanie Grisham claims Obama aides left 'you will fail" notes in offices for Trump aides: “We came into the WH, I’ll tell you something. Every office was filled with Obama books and we had notes left behind that said ‘you will fail,’ ‘you aren’t going to make it,’”
— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) November 19, 2019
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The claim was met with skepticism even by the reporter herself. “If true, you have to wonder why no one has ever mentioned it before…” Phillip wrote, then said it seemed “unlikely” that no one had kept the notes.
Former Obama officials quickly called Grisham out:
This is a lie. If this happened I also don’t think the entire Trump staff would wait 3 years to tell us. Sad to see the WH press secretary fall this far https://t.co/4JMlk5Ok2J
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) November 19, 2019
ABC News’ chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl even posted some pictures of offices on the day of transition, which don’t appear to depict anything of the sort.
I was in the West Wing on the evening of January 20, 2017, talking to several incoming Trump officials as they moved into their offices. I saw no offices "filled with Obama books" and nobody mentioned "you will fail" notes. Here are photos I took at the WH that night pic.twitter.com/TUZhbO6QbN
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) November 19, 2019
Some Obama officials, meanwhile, acknowledged that Grisham wasn’t completely making things up — they did indeed leave some things behind, they said, but for a very different purpose.
I was there. This is a complete and utter lie. Quite the opposite — we left them briefing books to try to help with the transition as much as possible. https://t.co/WxMNIiwBuV
— Daniel Jacobson (@Dan_F_Jacobson) November 19, 2019
After the Obama officials criticized Grisham’s claim, she backtracked a little bit, admitting she wasn’t “sure where their offices were, and certainly wasn’t implying every office had that issue.”
One former White House official, Michelle Obama’s press secretary, actually posted the note she left when she left the White House:
The note I left my East Wing successor, now @PressSec Stephanie Grisham. https://t.co/38mclNs0fE pic.twitter.com/vkNrXl32PZ
— Joanna/JoJo Rosholm (@jojorosholm) November 19, 2019
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